The Death Eater
by SerenityBlaidd
Summary: Uncertain if she's even really magical, fifteen year old Sibby is recruited for the war effort by the charismatic blood-traitor, Sirius Black. But with the bodycount rising and Death Eater, Evan Rosier risking his own life to keep her safe, Sibby has to decide for herself what sacrifices are worth making, and at what point the end result can no longer justify the crimes of war.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling.**

**This story begins in the autumn term of 1978.**

**It is a complete story in it's own right (which will be published chapter by chapter as I edit it) but it does follow on chronologically from 'Long Before the War' (which is about Remus Lupin's school years). Please do review with any thoughts idea's or any characters you think are missing. I like reviews ;)**

**~o0o~**

Rain bucketed out of the sky.

The Quidditch pitch was slick, grass flattened into the glistening mud. The high wooden stands, which stretching above the oval of grass, creaked in the icy wind. The canvas banners that hung wetly from them, flapped and strained like sails, keen to carry the stadium away, or rip it to pieces.

.

It was the sort of weather insane people would spend trying out for a team, and today the insane ones were the Slytherins.

.

Sibby Wilkes was watching them from the minimal shelter at the base of one of the high wooden stands. Wet fabric flapped against her damp robes, but she didn't seem to have noticed. Her best friend, Charity Burbage watched with narrowed green eyes that made her look more like a cat than usual. '...Come and help me get this moss." She snapped. Sibby turned slowly, her eyes were the last part of her to leave the field. It took her a moment to find Charity's irritated scowl.

.

"…Say what?" She asked.

"The moss. The _Purple Sink-Hex Moss_!" Charity mimicked the enthusiasm Sibby had announced its discovery with. "The amazing make-the-best-motion-potion-ever Moss."

"...Slughorn will like it." Sibby said, looking back at the gap in the cloth.

"He'd better." Charity assured her.

.

Potions class made her feel sick inside. Professor Slughorn only liked purebloods, potions genius's and Sytherins. Anyone who didn't have a wizarding family tree more inbred than a pedigree dog was ignored. The poor, the shy, pretty much everyone. She shoved a handful of the strange speckled moss into her bag and rubbed her hands clean on her robes, wondering what Sibby was thinking. The sounds of the Quidditch players drifted in gusts, like the rain. She imagined them bedraggled. Hair pressed against their heads, cheeks red raw from the weather.

.

The Slytherin Quidditch team were an elite bunch. All rich, skill-full, and well-born. They green robes were trimmed with silver and their brooms had silver metal snake coiled along them. They were not being very nice to their hopeful housemates, and perhaps that was what kept Sibby watching them. Charity shivered again, and then she squealed in fright as one of the Slytherin Beaters yanked the cloth open and lunged at her.

.

Frantically Charity shoved Sibby head-first out the far side of the stand, and the two girls found themselves sprawled on the muddy field, at the foot of what felt like half of Slytherin House.

.

"Spies!" The other Beater snarled, brandishing his bat at the two girls.

"We are not spies!" Charity yelled, tripping on her robes as she tried to stand up. "We don't even like Quidditch!"

.

The circle of Slytherins closed ranks. Charity finally managed to stop slipping about, and pulled herself up to her full height. Sibby hadn't even tried to get up, and was watching them with a distracted look that Charity really hoped meant she was summoning up some brilliant charm. Both Beaters looked like they were about to do some beating. "...We're not spies." Charity said again. "We just came for a walk."


	2. Chapter 2

Morgan Rosier, the Slytherin Captain, slid his wand out from beneath his robes, considering them both with a silky smile. "Get her on her feet." He suggested, quietly. "And I'll show you how I deal with spies."

"You can't do anything to us." Charity warned him. "We weren't doing anything. And we weren't spying!"

"Going for a walk in this, were you?" One of the other Slytherins jeered, gesturing up at the filthy weather.

"And she isn't really your cousin." The Seeker added, nastily. "She isn't even a Wilkes. She's some dirty Mudblood."

"…Muddy Mudblood." One of the Beaters added, with a deep chuckle that was taken up, around the circle.

.

Sibby chose this moment to get up. She hadn't been working on some super hex. She had been, Charity concluded miserably, lost in thought. There was mud on her robes and on her cheek. "…We weren't spying on you." She said, looking up into Morgan's grey eyes without any hint that she'd noticed how bad the situation was. "We were collecting Purple Sink-Hex Moss. There's was a tiny bit growing beneath the stands."

.

The Slytherins considered the statement in bemused silence, waiting for some signal from Morgan to do something horrible. But Morgan himself hesitated.

.

"What's Purple Sink-Hex Moss?" Morgan's brother, Evan asked. Evan Rosier was in their year and presumably trying out for a place on the Slytherin team.

"...It makes broom's super-fast." One of them explained, quickly.

"…It's very rare." Someone else added.

.

"That's what we were doing." Sibby concluded. She looked at Morgan, waiting for him to respond, although he didn't. He nodded to two Slytherins to check the base of the stands, and then he flicked his wand and summoned Charity's bag, taking the moss out, thoughtfully.

.

"...Tell Frankie next time he sends spies, I'll set my Beaters on them." He said, and marched off, with the bag of moss, and his team, following. Charity took Sibby back to their Common Room, cold, muddy, shaken-up, but actually suspecting they had gotten off lightly.


	3. Chapter 3

Potions class was taking in a dark classroom, cramped with ingredients cupboards, books, cauldrons, and endless shelves of dusty glass bottles. The floor, walls and low ceiling her all sticky from an uncountable number of splashes, and explosions. It smelt of the mixed residue from endless potion work, and a complete lack of ventilation. The classroom was at the top of the old dungeons, the only window a grimy slit along the ceiling's edge. None of the students had ever seen it open.

.

Professor Slughorn was, like his classroom, rather creepy. His robes smelt rather unpleasantly of the room where he taught and his shiny red face was rather too friendly, as were his chubby hands.

.

"Motion Potions." He began, cracking his knuckles, noisily. "I hope you have all collected some interesting ingredients. Cauldron's have been boiling for one day and one night. Four students to a cauldron..." He unrolled a parchment on which he had allocated them groups. Charity held her breath until her own and Sibby's names had been called, and scurried to her side. Potions Class was always taken with Slytherins, and Evan Rosier and Utred Wilkes joined them at the cauldron, lips pressed thinly together, eyes on the distance.

.

"Did you bring any Purple Sink-Hex Moss?" Sibby asked. Evan had been studying the grey slit of a window. Charity didn't say anything, although it was beyond her how Sibby could ask it like that, as if Evan's brother hadn't stolen the stuff from them before threatening them with Beater bats. And he had called her a Mudblood. For that matter, Charity didn't even know how the Slytherins could have found out that Sibby had been adopted by Wilkes.

.

Evan Rosier looked down his narrow nose at her. He had the same narrow nose and grey eyes as his brother, and the same slightly floppy brown hair. The same as his fathers, for that matter. But probably his mother too considering how inbred all those purebloods were, Charity thought, allowing herself a small smile at her private joke.

.

Evan tipped the Purple Stink-Hex Moss out of his bag without speaking. It was a fine powder now, dried and well ground. Sibby picked a pinch, rubbing it between her fingers. "...You ground this finely." She concluded. She sounded pleased, although she glanced up at him with just a hint of caution, and to Charity's surprise, a definite smile. Evan stared at her, for a good minute, but then to Charity's complete surprise he nodded.

"...My brother did it." He told her, shortly. "Prepared it."


	4. Chapter 4

Ch.4

"We can't add it until we have a rolling boil." Wilkes told Evan, ignoring the two girls completely. Charity emptied her own supplies onto the desk and they started to pull the potion together. Charity didn't do anything because she knew she would mess it up. Sibby was good at potions mostly, but the Slytherin boys didn't want her help. Charity thought Evan and Wilkes were good at potions themselves. Probably because they stole other people's ingredients,

.

"_I'm sorry_." Evan said. It was a such a random statement. He had addressed the bubbling cauldron, and Charity glanced at him and at Sibby uncertainly. Wilkes had gone for a crystal vial and Evan went back to stirring the orange potion.

.

"...I was collecting the moss for this practical." Sibby said, softly. She looked over at him, uneasily. Evan drew his frown up from the rhythmically popping bubbles. He looked at her, very slowly. Charity stopped tapping her quill, in surprise.

.

"No. I'm not apologising for my brother. I'm sorry I said about your parentage." Evan clarified. He actually meant it as well, Charity was sure. Although why he would possibly be sorry, and how he'd known in the first place, were complete mysteries.

.

"That means a lot to me." Sibby said, softly. Evan didn't say anything else but he looked, Charity thought, like he was going to.

.

"...Oh, so sorry, Rosier." Eric Wood said, dropping a fistful of blue powder into the cauldron. "Wasn't that 'clumsy and stupid' of me?"

"_You idiot_!" Evan cursed angrily, sweeping the top of the potion, as he frantically tried to stop the powder mixing in.

"I'm Hufflepuff." Eric offered in mock explanation. "You know what we're like. Clumsy and stupid, Rosier. What can you do?"

.

"That was our potion too, Eric!" Lucy hissed at him, appalled. "You idiot!" Eric glanced at her for a moment, but then he turned back to enjoy Evan and Wilkes, desperately trying to save their orange gloop.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch.5

"Sorry about messing your grades." Eric said, as soon as he could catch Charity on her own. "Slytherins always slip something stupid in my potions. They really needed paying back."

"They stole that Purple Stink Moss from us in the first place." Charity told him, swinging her bag over her shoulder as they walked together up the corridor. She wasn't really annoyed. Despite the blue powder turning the orange potion dog-poo brown, it had still worked well and got her her highest ever Potions grade.

.

"…Evan Rosier's been putting it about that Sibby is an adopted Mudblood." Charity told him. "He deserved it."

"Is that true?" Eric asked, surprised. "Sibby's not really a fancy old Wilkes?" Charity flashed him a reproachful look, although she knew Eric wouldn't care, or tell anyone.

"It's true." She told him. "Evan's told the whole Slytherin Quidditch team, so it's going to be common knowledge anyway."

"She's so sweet." Eric pointed out. "It kind of made me feel a bit angry, seeing her looking all impressed with Rosier's potion brewing, back there."

.

Charity ignored him, folding her arms across her chest. "…Sibby is so trusting and kind." He added, still thinking about it.

"Do you want to ask her to the Yule Ball?" Charity suggested, crossly. Eric's laugh was decidedly nervous.

"No." He said. "I thought... Actually, I was… I thought, if no one's asked you already..."

.

Charity breathed a sigh of relief, her smile returning as she started back up the corridor.

"That's not very romantic." She complained, which made him laugh again. "But yes."

"I'll do it again and I'll make it romantic." He promised, and hurried off to Divination.

.

Maybe people were whispering about Sibby being adopted. Maybe she was worried that they were. Maybe she was daydreaming about swimming in a sea of boiled candy with a family of talking Kappas. Charity had no idea, but she was getting a bit sick of suggesting stuff for the Ball and being completely ignored.

.

They'd both picked at dinner, and Charity was relieved to see Eric brandishing a box of Singing Butterfly Chocolates, as she scrambled through the barrel entrance to the Common Room.

.

"…They're so pretty!" Sibby exclaimed, as they all watched the chocolate butterflies flapping tunefully about the room.

"I'd really like it if you'd come to the Ball with me, Charity." Eric said. "Will you?" Charity laughed

"That is_ so much_ better!" She assured him and Eric hugged her very pleased with himself.

.

"We could all go together." Eric's best friend Orion suggested. "The four of us. If that's okay with you, Sibby?"

"Oh, yes, of course." Sibby said, distracted by Charity's shriek of excitement, and the fluttering chocolate.

"Thanks." Orion said. He smiled at her, slightly shyly, before taking himself back to his homework.

.

Orion was tall and handsome, with shiny black hair and golden brown eyes. He was one of those students that could have gone into any house. Clever enough for Ravenclaw, brave enough for Gryffindor and well-born enough for Slytherin. But the Sorting Hat had ushered him into Hufflepuff, where he would undoubtedly become Head of House and Captain of the Quidditch team.

.

It seemed unlikely that he should have felt shy about asking Sibby to the Yule Ball and Charity secretly wondered if he had done it out of kindness, because his own family had always been close to the Wilkes's. Maybe he wanted to show he didn't care about her not being the blood descendent everyone had assumed.

**AN: Can you tell they're all in Hufflepuff? I wanted them to all be their own people, but for their Hufflepuff nature to shine through.**


	6. Chapter 6

Not for the first time Charity wondered what had possessed Helga Hufflepuff to make the entrance to her Common Room through a barrel in the kitchen corridor. She scrambled up off her hands and knees, glaring at Evan Rosier who was standing by the opposite wall watching, and almost certainly wondering the same thing. He turned to study the kitchen's closed door with a scowl as he waited for Sibby to follow her out and clamber gracelessly to her feet.

.

"What do you want?" Charity asked, feeling cocky because Evan was alone in the Hufflepuff corridor. "Come to steal something else, for your thief of a brother?" Evan consider it without stooping to respond. Charity interlocked her arm with Sibby's. She couldn't help thinking about Eric saying how sweet and trusting Sibby was and that she'd looked impressed by Evan's apparently sincere apology. "…Come on, Sibby." She added, firmly.

.

Sibby didn't 'come on'. She turned back to Evan, getting her arm free. "Are you alright?" She asked. Sibby always managed to sound really genuine, like Evan Rosier might be snooping around the Hufflepuff corridor for a really good reason, something that he might need assistance with.

"Looking for more private secrets to blab to everyone?" Charity suggested. Evan's eyes grazed her again with that look of contemptuous disgust. Ignoring her he headed over to Sibby.

.

"I just wondered who you were going to the Yule Ball with." He said quietly. Charity laughed out loud.

"_As if_!" She exclaimed, before she could stop herself. "Do you remember what you called her, Rosier?"

"I didn't call you anything." Evan said to Sibby, still pretending that Charity didn't exist.

"I know." Sibby assured him. "It doesn't matter."

"Is Orion Le Fey taking you to the Ball?" Evan asked instead, although he obviously already knew.

.

_How do you know that_, Charity felt like demanding. _Who even spoke to the Slytherins, to tell them things like that_?

.

"Orion asked me last night." Sibby told Evan. "Do you know him?" Evan nodded. He didn't seem upset about it, which Charity had been really hoping he would. He nodded again, thinking about it for a moment, before dismissing them from his attention and heading back up into the main castle.

.

"...Actually I think his pure-blood has made him a bit mental." Charity observed, diving back into the barrel. "...Evan Rosier is mental, Eric!" She announced, finding him chatting to Orion. Orion was wearing his black and yellow Quidditch robes. Charity wished Eric was on the Quidditch team, because that kit looked so great. "...Evan just asked Sybie to the Ball!" She explained, pulling her attention back to Eric.

"I hope you told him where to go." Eric said to Sibby, who'd drifted behind Charity, into the Common Room.

.

"He wasn't asking me to go with him." Sibby clarified.

"His father would disown him, if he did." Orion said, mildly amused. "Besides, those Slytherins are all coupled up before their born. Lucky sods. They don't have to ask girls out." He looked over at Sibby fondly. "Let's see if I can't beat some decency into him, on the Quidditch pitch." He laughed.

.

"_Evan_ Rosier is on the Quidditch team?" Eric asked in surprise. "Lucky you. Although I think it'll take more than a wooden bat to beat some decency into him."

"Yeah, I do to." Orion agreed. "Might be able to smack that smirk off his stuck-up little face though..." He paused seeing that Sibby turned and taken herself straight back to the barrel exit.

.

"Let's go, Le Fey!" Frankie yelled over, fastening his Captain's Band around his arm.

"I'll meet you on the pitch." Orion said, hurrying after Sibby.

"No prob." Frankie patted his arm as the rest of his team scrambled through the barrel exit.


	7. Chapter 7

"How did _you_ manage to get into Hufflepuff?!" Sibby demanded, her voice sharp with anger. Orion waited, meekly, his team and the whole game, waiting for him on the pitch outside. "…Do you think it's funny to joke about hitting people with Beater bats?"

"A bit." Orion said, smiling at her anger. "When it's Evan Rosier… I've never seen you lose your rag before, Sibby. Have you ever thought of trying out as a Beater?"

"_I thought you were better than that_!" Sibby exploded. Orion paused, considering because in all honesty he hadn't thought that Sibby really _thought_ about what he was like at all really, except that hopefully she thought he was handsome and that he was good at Quidditch.

.

"...I'm glad you think about me." He told her, quietly. "And the Sorting Hat never hesitated when it put me in Hufflepuff, Sibby. I always play a clean decent game."

"Well, that was an ugly joke." Sibby told him. _But not as ugly as Evan's face would be after a quick punt from a bludger_, Orion thought. He kept it to himself and gave her a quick hug before legging it, as quickly as he could, to the waiting game.

.

The team was already on the pitch. Frankie rolled his eyes at Orion, as he ran to join them. The Madame Hooch blew her whistle and the teams rose into the air. Slytherin had already won the championship, on points, and the match would only decide whether Hufflepuff or Gryffindor took second place.

.

.

Charity and Eric had saved Sibby a place in the stands, they watched her squeezing through the press of excited students grimly.

.

Orion and Evan had already, _literally_, smashed into each other, ensnaring their brooms mid-air, _twice_. Both were already bleeding and the Slytherin stands were on their feet, howling for more bloody revenge.

.

Madame Hooch, refereeing from the air, was beside herself, blowing her whistle repeatedly with angry bafflement at the ferocity with which the players were now _all_ playing.

.

.

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tended to produce Quidditch 'Champions', solo plays of stunning brilliance, to win their matches for them. While Slytherin and Hufflepuff both played close-knit team games.

.

The Hufflepuff's were famous for standing by each other and always put their team before their personal egos.

.

And the Slytherin team were almost all related. Evan's brother, Morgan, was their Captain. Their cousin Lucas was a Beater. The other Beater and the Keeper were brothers. They were also used to having to stick together against all three of the other houses.

.

Now they were united in their desire to inflict as much violence on the Hufflepuffers as they could.

.

Hufflepuff was the vastly weaker team, and they were working hard just to cover each others backs from violent assault for most of the first half.

.

Sibby had recounted Orion's assurances that he always played a clean and decent game, increasingly desperately, as they had all watched the game descend into a battle of bone-jarring, pointless violence. They all believed Orion had meant it, when he'd said it. But by the second half the Hufflepuffs were forced, or enraged enough, to retaliate and the violence escalated tenfold.

.

The Slytherin Seeker finally captured the snitch, swooping down to slam the golden ball directly into Frankie's face, which made the Hufflepuff Captain the fifth player of the match to be sent to the hospital wing.

.

Slytherin had won the match and the House Cup, although the sheer number of penalties they had given away had given Hufflepuff more points than Gryffindor, breaking the tie and putting them in second place in the Championship. Both houses left the field feeling like they'd fought a hard battle and essentially won.

.

.

Orion crawled through the barrel on his hands and knees, still holding an icepack to an impressively bruised face. He eyed Sibby uncertainly but got no opportunity to tell if she was annoyed about the fighting during the match as he was accosted by his enthusiastic team mates. Hopefully even Sibby realised the Slytherins had all been completely mental. Everyone else seemed to realise it and were just jubilant that they had stood as a team _and_ got the points to put themselves in second place. They had achieved everything from the game they could possibly have hoped for and he was heavily mugged as a hero. Sibby gave him a smile from across the room, but she didn't fling her arms around him and kiss his poor wounded face.

.

"They're ruthless and mental." He complained to Eric instead, when everyone had calmed down, and he could get some peace. 'Did you see what they were like?"

"I saw you elbow Evan Rosier in the face." Eric said, cheerfully.

"They were all _mental_." Orion complained. "And he did deserved that. He had it in for me the whole game. Thank God they didn't make him a Beater."

.

"What did Sybie say?" Orion asked, glancing over at the girl's dorm, which was quiet now.

"Not much." Eric admitted. "She was gripping the rail the whole time. She was a bit white. I don't think she liked it much."

"It was impossible to play properly." Orion complained. He really had wanted to impress Sibby with some fantastic moves and some textbook fair play. "Slytherins just wanted to fight." He sighed, glumly.


	8. Chapter 8

"You look beautiful." Sibby said. Charity flashed her an anxious grin. They had their dress robes on for the Yule Ball, and everything else was packed or shoved into their trunks.

.

"…Orion will be wearing his Quidditch robes." Charity said, glancing at the door to see if he and Eric were in the Common Room, although it was packed and impossible to tell. Everyone looked very different dressed up.

.

Charity's own dress robes were black and embroidered with birds and cats. They were, if she did say so herself, _stunning_. The golden thread was a perfect match for her own golden blond curls, and they had cost a small fortune. She'd had them fitted in Diagon Alley in August and this was the first chance she'd had to show them off. She so wished Eric was on the Quidditch team. Then they would match so well then.

.

She flashed Sibby a wistful grin. Sibby was pretty and lovely and that was very lucky because her dress robes were bile-vomit yellow. They were the ugliest dress robes Charity had ever seen. She'd offered to try and 'fix them up a bit' twice now, and she didn't want to upset Sibby by pushing it.

.

"The Ball _has_ started." Orion put his head of silky black hair into the girl's dorm and flashed them a white toothed grin. Orion looked _great_ in his Quidditch robes. So great that it obviously showed on Charity's face as Eric gave her a very dark look and stomped off to the barrel exit alone.

.

"Orion's face looks really sore." Sibby said, scrambling out of the barrel and brushing her knees clean. "We were just saying," She said to Eric. "…that maybe he should go back to the hospital wing?"

"I'm alright." Orion assured her, crawling out last, very pleased that she was worried about him. And Eric, presuming that this must have been why Charity had been staring at Orion stopped being sulky and put his arm around her waist. Charity flashed her friend a 'thank you' smile, wondering how Sibby could know what to say to Eric to explain away her staring at Orion when most of the time Sibby didn't even seem to notice what class they were in.

* * *

Evan Rosier was also sporting a black eye. It clashed impressively with his expensive robes. He had those traditional wizarding gloves and black leather boots. All the Slytherins had expensive dress robes. The girls were especially lavish and beautiful. Three of the boys were also wearing purple bruises, from the previous days Quidditch Match, against the 'gentle and decent' Hufflepuffs.

.

Orion noticed Sibby looking at the purple bruises. He wasn't sure how intentional his elbow smashing into Evan's face had looked, from the stands. But hopefully it had been obvious how relentlessly Evan, and his cronies, had been attacking any Hufflepuff player they could get at.

In fact, Evan Rosier had watched them come in to the hall, his grey eyes expressionless, his lips tightened into their usual sneer. He was with his girlfriend, Violet Greengrass, who was beautiful but equally sneery, with a sheet of white blond hair, which she flicked about a lot. Often in Evan's face which Orion hoped was actually quite annoying. He touched a bit of Sibby's hair, which was loose from its clasp, and then checked nervously to see if she minded. "Your hair looks very nice." He said.

"Charity did it." She told him, sounding like she might still be cross about the Quidditch match.

Around them there was a lot of dancing. The House Elves carried trays of food and drinks about the room, and enchanted harps played music, first lively, and then gentle, romantic pieces, as the enchanted ceiling darkened over their heads.

* * *

Sibby was standing in the caretaker's corridor, sipping a drink. This surprised Evan slightly as he had been watching her all night, and she had never moved far from the top left corner of the Great Hall, where Orion Le Fey, her Mudblood friend, Charity Burbage, and Eric Wood stayed with her, dancing and laughing.

.

He hadn't seen her cross the hall, or seen her get past him, for that matter. He checked again that she was just standing there, alone, and then he told Violet to wait for him and headed over to her, expecting Orion to show up beside her at any minute.

.

He didn't actually know what to say to her. Nothing sprung to mind as he walked over. She was wearing yellow dress robes. He didn't know if that was to match her boyfriends Quidditch robes or just because she loved her house. Either way they were pretty horrible. Horrible enough to make him smile again. For no reason at all he wondered what she would look like in decent robes, like Violets.


	9. Chapter 9

Sibby watched him picking his way over to her. A House Elf pressing a glass into his hand. He still hadn't thought of anything to say and by the look of her she had nothing to say either. But she did smile. She took another sip of her drink, looking again at the cool dark evening outside the door.

_Don't say anything about the Quidditch match_, he concluded, although he couldn't think of anything else. He had actually played brilliantly. He was sure she didn't realise that. And while he had, admittedly, whipped his entire team into a violent frenzy, he hadn't actually, personally, inflicted any of the serious injuries to her team. _Don't talk about Quidditch_, he thought again. It was actually all he'd talked about since the whistle had blown.

She'd had her sissy boyfriend complaining about his broken nose and swollen eye all evening, trying to make her feel sorry for him. Evan had been watching Sibby feeling so sorry for him, for quite a long time.

"...Your girlfriend is really beautiful." Sibby said, randomly. Evan glanced back into the hall, where he could just see Violet talking to her friends.

"Yes, she is," he agreed. Sibby was pretty he thought, although her dress robes were actually comically awful.

"…You got selected for the Quidditch team," she added. She actually sounded quite please for him, which he knew she wasn't. That made him regarded her suspiciously.

"Yes. For _my_ Quidditch team." He said.

"I don't know anything about Quidditch," she added, turning away from the dancers in the hall to find his face. "…But I know you were fantastic."

Evan blushed, which was mortifying. Sibby smiled, obviously having noticed. "…Everyone saw that you were fantastic. It was your first game."

"That's what they're saying in the Hufflepuff Common Room, is it?" Evan asked, recovering a bit.

"That's what they're thinking. The whole school, I think."

"How would you know what other houses think?" Evan asked, trying to get his head around this.

"I get on with everyone." Sibby pointed out. She took another sip of her drink. "And you might be terrible, next time you play," she observed, with another smile.

And that was very true, Evan knew.

Sibby smiled again, although he was pretty sure that she was smiling at the daftness of Quidditch. Evan didn't think Quidditch was in anyway daft, but considering that he might be terrible next time he played, there was something rather reassuring in her thinking it was daft. And she thought he was 'fantastic'. She thought everyone thought he was fantastic.

"...Does it hurt?" She asked.

She thought he was fantastic… He had no idea what 'it' was, to judge whether it would hurt for her, or not.

"I'm sorry, does what hurt?" he asked.

"Your cheek. Your eye." She nodded to the swollen bruising.

"No. I gave out worse…" he wanted to bite back the words, because he knew that would go down like a dragon on a hexed broom, but he didn't have it in him, so he studied her, waiting for her to huff her Hufflepuff wussy-ness at him.

And waiting for that reminded him how he'd expected her to be when he'd told everyone about her not being a Whitbread…

He hadn't told everyone. He'd told Amycus. But he wished he hadn't. He didn't know why she'd been nice to him after that. Although he didn't know why she was nice to him, at all. And if he wanted her to be sorry for the way he played Qudditch, then she could keep wanting.

They had been silent for a while. He could actually see Charity Burbage looking around for her. Charity hadn't spotted them, and Sibby hadn't noticed, but he could feel the seconds ticking away until they were interrupted.

"…He shouldn't have hit you," Sibby had just said. Evan lifted his shoulders. He didn't know they were still on that subject. Frankly, they'd been playing Quidditch with the entire school watching. They were all playing to win, so Evan should have predicted and avoided Orion's assault.

"It's fine... Who knew Le Fey had it in him?" he added. He was wondering which of her friends was going to come over to interrupt them first. Charity and Eric were either side of the hall, so he was expecting it to be Orion. He didn't want it to be Orion.

"Wow!"

It was none of them. It was his Violet. She was blocking out m4ost of the light, studying them both, an arm on either side of the do444444orframe. "...I can honestly say that those are the _absolutely_ _foulest_ dress-robes I have ever seen. Do you think she's trying to be ironic?"

Evan didn't say anything. "…Is that actually dyed with vomit stains?" Violet suggested, grinning at his lack of amusement. "Oh, maybe Hufflepuff has soiled herself and rolled in it. It's not a curtain, is it, Hufflepuff?"

"I don't want to do this now," Evan snapped, his voice taut with annoyance.

Violet had known Evan since they were toddlers, so she noticed the change of tone at once. He sounded like his father, his father annoyed.

"Well good," she assured him. "Because I can actually think of more amusing ways to end the Yule Ball than in a damp corridor with the school idiot."

"Good." Evan said, and he followed her back into the Grand Hall.


End file.
